Ten Steps to Pesticide-free Parks: How to Create Healthy Public Spaces in Your Community Arbor Lodge is one of Portland, Oregon’s first pesticide-free parks. www.pesticide.org 0 Table of Contents Introduction: Ten Steps To Pesticide-free Parks…2 1. Connect With Others Who Share Your Interest In Pesticide-free Parks…3 2. Set Goals And Clarify What The Group Wants…4 3. Identify And Meet With Parks Staff To Measure Support For Your Goals…5 4. Gather More Support From The Community To Gain Visibility…6 5. Launch A Campaign To Influence The Decision Makers …7 6. Once The Program Concept Is Approved, Work With Parks Staff To Design A Program That Has Community And Agency Support…9 7. Put The Program In Writing…10 8. Train and Support Your Program Volunteers…11 9. Plan A Community Event With Parks Staff To Kick Off The Program And Celebrate!...12 10. Moving Forward With Your Program…13 Appendix A-J …15 1 Introduction: Ten Steps to Pesticide-free Parks The pesticide-free parks movement is growing! People want places they can go with their children and pets where they won’t be exposed to pesticides. There are new pesticide-free parks programs sprouting up all over the northwest! Just five years ago, only a few cities in the northwest had established pesticide-free parks programs. Now at least 17 cities in the northwest have parks that are managed without the use of any pesticides — including insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. As more and more community members become interested in pesticide-free public spaces, parks departments are responding by designating parks where vegetation is managed without herbicides. Weeds in these parks are managed with a variety of techniques including hand pulling, flame weeding, and mulching by parks staff or volunteers. In addition to reducing the pesticides used in public spaces, pesticide-free parks serve as an educational model of pesticide-free practices people can use in their own homes and gardens while still managing weeds. Are you ready for pesticide-free parks in your community? Are you ready to work with parks staff to establish places where you can go with your children and pets where you won’t be exposed to pesticides? The process takes a firm commitment from dedicated individuals but is well worth the effort. In this report, the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) has outlined 10 steps you can take to create a pesticide-free parks program in your community. Kids and pets can enjoy pesticide-free parks without exposure to pesticides. 2 1. CONNECT WITH OTHERS WHO SHARE YOUR INTEREST IN PESTICIDE-FREE PARKS Identify people in your community who are ready to take a leadership role in creating a pesticide-free parks program by having a booth at community events, talking with people who use the park, thinking of your own friends, or connecting with a school or church near a park you have in mind. Create a committee or group of a few people who are ready to take leadership on the issue. These people might be willing to attend meetings with city staff, connect with neighborhood associations, coordinate a kickoff event, or do outreach at other local events. Find a leadership role that fits each person. Also, identify people who aren’t necessarily leaders, but who are willing to help with the effort. These people can help by working at outreach events, distributing petitions in support of pesticide-free parks, preparing mailings or distributing flyers. Once the parks are designated pesticide-free, they can also help by pulling weeds, if this is needed. This volunteer takes a break to appreciate her pesticide-free park. 3 2. SET GOALS AND CLARIFY WHAT THE GROUP WANTS Gather with your group of leaders to get clarity on what the group wants. Will you start with a few pesticide-free parks or have the city declare all parks as pesticide-free zones? NCAP recommends starting small for success and adding more parks in time. Do you have a particular park or parks in mind? Small neighborhood parks that are used by kids are a great starting point. Large parks with large natural areas and/or invasive species can be difficult to manage with volunteer efforts or by parks staff with limited resources. Parks with ball fields can also be difficult to manage because these large open areas will need to be weeded by hand. Volunteers using hand tools maintain this pesticide-free ball field. Will you offer to recruit and engage volunteers, or will you ask the parks staff to manage the parks without pesticides using their staff resources? There are pros and cons to both ways. When parks employees manage the parks, they take more ownership for the program. However, many parks departments don’t currently have the resources to have staff manage weeds without pesticides, so engaging volunteers can be a good solution. Engaging volunteers involves 4 people in their parks and encourages community service, but it also takes a lot of time to recruit and supervise people who are willing to pull weeds in the parks. NCAP recommends starting with a goal of having parks staff maintain the park(s), but if this isn’t feasible, you may want to offer to recruit and/or coordinate volunteers who will help with weeding. 3. IDENTIFY AND MEET WITH PARKS STAFF TO MEASURE SUPPORT FOR YOUR GOALS Find out who would be responsible for implementing a pesticide-free parks program within the parks department and contact them to set up a meeting. This will usually be the parks director in a smaller city or the parks maintenance manager in a larger city. It’s important to have more than one community member attend this meeting so the person you’re meeting with understands this is not a one-person effort, but that a large part of the community wants pesticide-free parks. Keep the group at this first meeting small so you don’t overwhelm the staff person you are meeting with, as s/he may be defensive. Approach this meeting with a friendly attitude to learn more about whom you will be working with. Remember, the term “pesticides” includes herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. Most parks departments in the northwest don’t use insecticides or fungicides, so the focus of this conversation will be focused on herbicides and controlling weeds. The primary goal of this first meeting is to determine the level of support you have from the parks department. Is the staff opposed or receptive to the idea of implementing a pesticide-free parks program? If staff members aren’t supportive, they will need some convincing, so providing information and examples will be helpful. Weeds in this shrub bed are controlled with mulch made of wood chips. 5 NCAP has created several reports that will be useful in educating and encouraging the parks department’s participation. For example, a report titled, “Pesticide-free Parks: It’s Time!” includes convincing and important reasons to establish a pesticide-free parks program. Providing examples will help parks staff to understand that the movement is growing and will encourage them to join. The second goal of this meeting is to learn who ultimately makes the decision about establishing pesticide-free parks. Is this the parks director, the parks maintenance manager, the parks board, or the city council? A third goal for the meeting is to determine what is needed to establish a program. Will you need to demonstrate that the community is supportive? If so, let the staff you are meeting with know you’ll be gathering petition signatures to provide to the person or elected body who will make the decision. Find out if they would like you to provide community input about which parks could be good starting points. 4. GATHER MORE SUPPORT FROM THE COMMUNITY TO GAIN VISIBILITY In order to demonstrate support for the program, gather names of people who are supportive of pesticide-free parks. You can use the sample petition in Appendix A. Petitions are a great way to demonstrate to decision-makers that the community wants pesticide-free parks. They are also a great way to get input about which parks people would most like to see designated pesticide- NCAP’s Pesticide-free Parks Program free. Another way to gather input Coordinator, Megan Kemple, talks with the public at an outreach event to gather support at community events is to set up an for Portland’s pesticide-free parks program. easel with a map of all of the city parks. Ask people to place a 6 colored pushpin on the park they would most like to see designated pesticide- free. This can give you a good visual idea of which parks are a priority. Gather names of people who want to help with this effort. You can recruit volunteers at local community events such as Earth Day celebrations or natural living festivals. Circulate volunteer sign-up sheets to neighbors or friends. Make an announcement or presentation at a neighborhood association meeting and/or write an article for the neighborhood newsletter. You can use the sign-up sheets in Appendix B to gather names and contact information for these new volunteers. These people can help by distributing petitions, distributing flyers, writing letters, sending emails or making phone calls to whoever will make the decision to establish a program, or in the case of some volunteer-run programs, they may help by pulling weeds in the parks. You might also want to gather the support and/or endorsement of influential individuals such as physicians, city councilors, or business owners.